An eight-month investigation culminated Friday with Mark Sievers in handcuffs and a red jail jumpsuit, arrested in Lee County on a murder charge in connection with the killing of his wife, Dr. Teresa Sievers.

"We were after Mark Sievers. We got our man, and we're very happy about that," Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott said on the steps of the Sheriff's Office moments after Sievers was perpwalked in front of local media.

Deputies arrested Sievers, 47, on a second-degree murder charge. Prosecutors will now decide whether to convene a grand jury to seek a first-degree murder indictment. If Sievers is indicted, he would face a mandatory life sentence if convicted and could face the death penalty.

Sievers has long been suspected of orchestrating the June 2015 killing of his wife, which detectives have said was carried out by Wright and Jimmy Ray Rodgers, 25, who was extradited to Lee County this week and faces a murder charge.

Mark Sievers and his new Naples attorney asked a judge Tuesday to reduce the $4.43 million bond keeping him jailed in the slaying of his wife.

[...] Judge John Duryea set the $4.4 million bond because investigative files show Teresa Sievers was worth that amount in life insurance and a prosecutor was afraid Mark Sievers would try to bond out with that money.

[...] The attorney made his case for the reduced bond by saying that Sievers has no criminal record and has lived in Lee County a decade where he has a mother and two daughters. The girls — ages 11 and 9 — are with their maternal grandmother who filed an emergency petition last week to gain custody of them.

A judge denied a motion Thursday to reduce Mark Sievers' bond on a second-degree murder charge.

Sievers' new attorney took the case back to the court of Judge Bruce Kyle to argue the $4.43 million bond was too much, and asked for a reduction to $250,000.

The $4.43 million total was established based on the value of insurance policies on Sievers' slain wife, Teresa - but none of that cash has been released by any of the insurance companies.

Mark Sievers answered dozens of questions that covered those policies, their home ownership, and shared responsibilities. But nothing he said was substantial enough to change the bond amount.

"They are not willing to pay anything out until the investigation is concluded," Sievers said. "They will not release any funds until the conclusion of this investigation, is what they've communicated with me. I'm not entitled to receive or benefit at all from anything pertaining to the estate or joint assets or anything of my wife until this is concluded and I'm acquitted."

His attorney, Michael Mummert, argued that it might as well be zero because he said Mark Sievers doesn't have anything close to the amount that would get him out of jail.

Mummert had hoped a lower bond would not only get him out but allow him a chance to fight for parental rights in a case with the Department of Children and Families regarding custody of his two daughters.

The state, though, revisited allegations that Mark Sievers' best friend, Curtis Wright, was hired for the murder.

Wright told investigators he was paid by Mark Sievers, a claim Sievers' attorney reminded was being made by a convicted felon.

The daughters of Lee County murder defendant Mark Sievers will remain in the temporary custody of their maternal grandmother as the case moves toward trial, a Lee County judge ruled Monday.

Circuit Judge Robert Branning denied the request of Mark Sievers’ mother, Bonnie, to have temporary custody of the two daughters transferred to her, determining it’s in the girls’ best interest to remain with their maternal grandmother, Mary Ann Groves. The custody fight stems from the unavailability of both of the girls’ parents — Mark Sievers has been in jail since February, accused of orchestrating the June 2015 killing of his 46-year-old wife and the children’s mother, Teresa Sievers.

Branning’s ruling is a victory for Groves and the Florida Department of Children and Families, which advocated for keeping the children with Groves.

But for Mark Sievers, the hearing could have been worse. A guardian ad litem sought to appoint a third-party organization to monitor all phone calls between Mark Sievers and his daughters, arguing he had been improperly influencing his kids. Branning issued a stern warning to Mark Sievers, but stopped short of mandating the monitoring, which would have reduced the number of jailhouse calls.

“Discussions about this case, discussions about persons involved in this case, are going to stop,” Branning said. “The evidence I heard here today and in earlier motions is unacceptable.”

The ruling ended two days of testimony and argument, which at times revealed some of the animosity between the families of Mark and Teresa Sievers amid the high-profile murder case.

Lawyers involved in the Lee County first-degree murder cases of Mark Sievers and Jimmy Rodgers tussled Friday over unseen evidence.

At a hearing for the two defendants, Assistant State Attorney Hamid Hunter said his office is trying to wrangle all of the DNA evidence and cellphone data to provide to defense lawyers for trial. But given how much time has passed in the case, “that’s not sufficient,” said Chief Assistant Public Defender Kathleen Fitzgeorge, who is representing Rodgers.[...]Wright has pleaded guilty to a second-degree murder charge and has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for a 25-year prison sentence. Mark Sievers and Rodgers have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges.

But the case has dragged since Rodgers' and Wright's arrests in August 2015. “We can’t progress without all discovery,” Fitzgeorge said, citing “literally hundreds” of swabs from different crime scenes, as well as information kept in Sievers' and Rogers’ cellphones that the state hasn’t yet produced.

“This is regular and routine discovery, and we don’t have it,” Fitzgeorge said.

Hunter invited defense lawyers to join him at the sheriff’s office and digital forensic lab to go through anything that may be submitted as evidence.

“We’re having problems reviewing the computer records," Hunter said, adding that much of it needs reformatting.

Lee Circuit Judge Bruce Kyle said the state’s efforts are, in fact, sufficient.“He’s inviting you to come look,” Kyle told Fitzgeorge. “It’s something the two of you will have to square away.”

Fort Myers, FL - Two men accused in the murder of Dr. Teresa Sievers appeared in court Thursday for a case management hearing.

Mark Sievers allegedly planned the murder of his wife while Jimmy Rodgers is accused of committing the crime in the Sievers Bonita Springs home, alongside Curtis Wright, who filed a plea deal in the case.

Defense attorneys for Sievers and Rodgers both argued the state has not made discovery available to them based on a technical issue.[...]Defense attorneys for Sievers also noted their motion to strike the death penalty, denied by the judge, was being appealed currently in Florida courts. His attorneys expect to appoint an additional lead with death penalty certification for the state.

FORT MYERS - Two men arrested in connection with the murder of Dr. Teresa Sievers in 2015 were in court Thursday for case management hearings.

Jimmy Rodgers and his attorneys announced their plans to review a hard drive with the state in early March.

The same hard drive has been the topic of several hearings in the past, as the state struggled to get contents of the drive to the defense teams. In the end, Rodgers' attorneys and the attorneys for co-defendant Mark Sievers were required to schedule appointments with the state to view the documents on the hard drive.

In recent days, Judge Bruce Kyle handed down his decision on the plans to appoint a death qualified attorney for Mark Sievers to work alongside Faga Law Group.

Kyle is asking that Sievers, qualified as indigent, go through the process to have a death qualified attorney appointed to him, as opposed to selecting the attorney he'll receive.

In the weeks leading up to the killing of Dr. Teresa Sievers, her husband Mark Sievers had almost daily text message exchanges with Curtis Wayne Wright, the man who has confessed to the crime.

The exchanges between Mark Sievers, 49, and Wright, 48, were included in nearly 1,600 pages of Sievers’ text messages released Wednesday by the state attorney’s office as part of a public records request.

The text messages date back as early as 2010 to July 1, 2015, two days after 46-year-old Teresa Sievers was found dead inside the Bonita Springs home she shared with her husband and two young daughters.

You'd think after Wright snitched and pled guilty this would be a slam-dunk case. Delay & Bill ... that's all defense attys do. I think I'll let the legs keep growing on this case and update when there's something of significance. _______________________

For the second time in less than two months, authorities are investigating a break-in at the Bonita Springs home of Teresa Sievers, the well-known doctor who was found bludgeoned to death there in June 2015.

After the judge expressed his frustration in delays of this case (previous post), he sure is taking his time on this matter... DELAYING the case. I'd say, the fact the brother lives in Missouri, should be a red flag to favor custody to the maternal grandmother, along with other obvious factors.

LEE COUNTY, Fla. - The custody of the two Sievers girls, whose family was torn apart by the murder of their mother, sits in limbo.

The daughters of Dr. Teresa and Mark Sievers are currently cared for by Teresa's mother after Teresa was killed. Mark awaits a trial accused of plotting Teresa's murder.

Teresa's mother filed paperwork earlier this year to temporarily move the girls to her hometown in the state of Connecticut. She said it was an effort to start over with the girls, along with the impact of media coverage, concerns about her aging husband's health and her limited ability to travel between Connecticut and Florida.

October 24, 2017Mark Sievers and Jimmy Rodgers both appeared before Judge Bruce Kyle for case management conferences.

Both defense teams announced they’ve been working on depositions since their last hearing more than a month ago, and in total, they completed a handful before the hearing Tuesday.

The state said they’re working with the attorneys to schedule more depositions.[...]Sievers will be back in court in early December for his team to argue their current motions, and both men are back in January for another case update.

Bonita Springs resident Mark Sievers sent that text message to his wife, Teresa, the morning of June 28, 2015 — the same day she was killed in a brutal murder he’s accused of orchestrating.

The message is one of scores listed on hundreds of pages of court documents released Thursday as the court slowly moves toward a trial for Sievers, who could face the death penalty if convicted on the first-degree murder charge against him.

Many of the texts hint at problems in their relationship during the months leading up to the murder.

He told her weeks before her death that she needed to get in touch with herself, prompting her to reply that he needed to “get in touch with reality.”

She texted him 20 days before the murder that his “helicoptering” was making her crazy.

Sievers is accused of carefully planning the homicide, even taking out five life insurance policies worth a combined total of more than $4 million on his wife.

He’s in jail without bond, awaiting trial. Curtis Wayne Wright, also accused of taking part in the killing, accepted a plea deal. He’s expected to testify against Sievers and co-defendant Jimmie Rodgers, who also faces a first-degree murder charge.

The defense and prosecution for a trial in the Dr. Teresa Sievers murder case have yet to receive pieces of evidence.

Jimmy Ray Rodgers and Mark Sievers were charged in connection with the death of Sievers’ wife, Dr. Teresa Sievers in 2015.

Attorneys for Rodgers and Sievers asked for four bins containing documents, envelopes and correspondence, however, the information will not be released until May 30 once they’re scanned into evidence.

The bins also contain letters between Sievers and Wayne Wright, the man Sievers is accused of hiring to kill his wife.[...]The next hearing involving the Sievers case will take place at 8:30 a.m. on June 28.

New details continue to emerge in the case of a Florida doctor bludgeoned to death in her own home in 2015. Her husband, Mark Sievers, is currently on trial for her murder.

Naples Daily News reports that on June 28, 2015, Dr. Teresa Sievers was beaten to death with a hammer while inside her Bonita Springs, Florida home. Authorities found her lying face-down on her kitchen floor with most of the back her head completely bashed in.

A Lee County judge decided to close a court proceeding to the public Thursday on whether Mark Sievers could maintain telephone conversations with his children.

The hearing was an emergency motion to discontinue the conversations he's had with his two daughters since he's been in custody on accusations or orchestrating the killing of his wife Dr. Teresa Sievers in June of 2015.

Sievers has been allowed to communicate with his children as long as a third person listened to the phone conversations. The two girls have lived with their maternal grandmother Mary Ann Groves.

Judge Robert Branning appeared hesitant to close the court proceedings because it wasn't a termination of parental rights proceeding, but a termination of parental rights is underway. Under Florida Statute, those hearings are closed to the public.